For ODP national championships, there is a “GLZ” zone for great lakes area (which is already covered by Midwest zone, as that zone includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin per USAWP website).
Illinois has HS water polo, which I suppose helps increase registrations/numbers at the older age levels. Compare: MWZ has a total of 11 teams allocated for age brackets 10u-14u, but 28 teams allocated for 16u and 18u (though I still wonder how there are more registered players in 16/18u in MWZ than there are in PSW or up and coming SWZ in which TX now has high school ball).
Great point. And there are zones that do not even do a JO quals since so few teams compete that have more allocations than zones with competitive JO quals. The logic appears to have opportunity to be better.
Well, the question is do high school water polo players in Illinois have to register with USAWP?
If the answer is yes, then that explains the large numbers. However, my guess is only a fraction of the HS water polo players in Illinois are going to play in JO’s. So those allocations will end up in CA at some point.
Illinois high school teams do not need to be USAWP members, as it is a state sanctioned sport. There are approximately 90 high school teams in Illinois and about 10 active clubs in Chicago through USAWP. The rest of the zone (13 states) has pockets of water polo - Michigan has about 30 high school teams with a few clubs, Missouri has about 30 high school teams with a few clubs, Ohio has about 14 teams with really only 1 club. Chicago and Michigan tend to send their kids to California for JO’s and Missouri (STL) and Ohio tend to send their kids to Texas.
The MWZ does not have much by way of younger age groups, so there might be a club or two here and there that fill a roster for 10’s or 12’s. A few more than can fill a 14’s. The majority of what is in the MWZ is high school and up.
There is a lot of conversation in MWZ about not having a qualifier in general and just doing it as a phone call.
For all those on the edge of their seats for the Midwest Zone Qualifier:
Its also a combo event serving as a zone championship. Since many teams attend Texas, and they did not need a qualifier, it gives the zone another event to bring teams together.
That said - only 5 teams entered as a Zone Championship across all ages.
Cool. But what happened to those hypercompetitive qualifications for 14U girls, 12U girls, 12U boys, and 10u mixed where the Midwest got 2 or 1 allocations? Do you know who got them ?
I do not know if any girls who played on that 2024 18U team were seniors. But the class of 2025 graduating seniors is pretty strong. Last fall, AG has been consistently a top 2-3 team in Northern/Central California, losing several very close games to SHP but beating practically everybody else. Their CD played on the Cadet NT. 5 or 6 (?) seniors will be playing in college next year.
Super glad the invitational div is back. In a competitive 14U boys div in Pacific Zone, our team made it into the invitational div. They would not have been able to travel to Texas as 1) higher cost and 2) our schools start earlier…in July
So USAWP adding invitational div helped our team make it in. It’s a young team and their experience will keep them together because of it for the next one.
I applaud USAWP for this, even though it is about money.
I think we have gotten off topic. It’s a good discussion but likely now worthy of a new thread about pool locations for tournaments or something so people can read about JO Quals schedules/results.
To change the topic closer to the original one. Why on Earth, USA Water Polo has 55 teams in the Championship 12U Girls Division? I have no idea how they could do brackets during Day 1 with this monstrosity. Wouldn’t be better to have 42 or so teams playing in the Championship (48 minus a few non-Californian teams that prefer to go to Texas) and the remaining 13 or so teams play in the Classic?
At least as a positive USAWP expanded the 12 Girls division to 55 teams. In 2023 they kept it at 48 despite that meaning that only less than 10 teams did not qualify for the tournament
Do you know who got them ?